The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may or may not constitute prior art.
The invention relates to a roof rail which is designed to be fastened to a roof structure of a motor vehicle and which comprises a load-absorbing rail profile and, in at least one sub-portion, a decorative profile for forming at least a first lateral decorative surface.
Such roof rails allow visual concealment of any fastening system and, with a suitable design of the decorative profile, the visual adaptation, for instance harmonization with the car colour, or the visual accentuation, for instance by the deliberate use of another material, of at least one visible surface of the roof rail in relation to the vehicle body surrounding the roof rail.
A roof rail having a cover part is known from the disclosure WO 2014/154688 A1. After fastening a rail profile to the roof structure via a fastening angle which allows fastening means to act laterally on the rail profile, a covering screen is plugged laterally onto the rail profile in order to conceal the fastening structure. DE 20 2014 102 150 U1 discloses a roof rail arrangement in which a strip-like decorative cover is fitted onto a lateral surface of a rail profile and allows a visual accentuation of a partial surface of a rail profile.
In both cases, the fastening of the decorative part is achieved in particular by a latching or adhesive connection which is relatively prone to failure and limits the design possibilities of the combination of a load-absorbing rail profile and a decorative profile. In addition, the fact that the decorative cover is a merely plugged-on or glued-on cover component is evident in both cases, with the result that the quality impression to be achieved is rather low.
DE 10 2015 212 684 B3 discloses a longitudinally divided roof rail which comprises an upper part and a lower part. The lower part is a load-bearing constituent part of the roof rail.